Hardware recommendations, Linux, 2012 March

[SandJ]

My local independent computer shop man asked me some questions:

• Intel or AMD (or something else?) processor?

• How many cores? Is dual-core enough? Will 4 make any difference to playing Oolite?

• nVidia is favourite for the graphics card; he suggested I ask you lot if a GTX 550 Ti is suitable?

[Cody]

he suggested I ask you lot if a GTX 550 Ti is suitable?

I have exactly that card, S&J! It is excellent for OpenGL, Oolite (and any DX11 games).
At about £100 (I think), it's a very good deal!

[SandJ]

he suggested I ask you lot if a GTX 550 Ti is suitable?

I have exactly that card, S&J! It is excellent for OpenGL, Oolite (and any DX11 games). At about £100 (I think), it's a very good deal!

That is exactly the sort of post I've been waiting for, thank you.

According to a March 2012 video card review on the Tom's Hardware site (mentioned above), it is toward the upper end for performance, despite its cost. And I see Linux drivers seem to be available for all nVidia cards, and that one is explicitly included.

[Cody]

I'd definitely recommend an Intel i5 quadcore CPU, as well (which I also have).

Edit to add: which 'flavour' of GTX 550Ti you might buy is down to personal choice.
I have the EVGA version, and a friend has the Gigabyte version, so I can recommend both.
You'll probably find that both of those are 'factory-clocked', as well... saves some tinkering.

[SandJ]

I'd definitely recommend an Intel i5 quadcore CPU, as well (which I also have).

Do all 4 get used? Is it better than dual core for Oolite?

Edit to add: which 'flavour' of GTX 550Ti you might buy is down to personal choice.
I have the EVGA version, and a friend has the Gigabyte version, so I can recommend both.

Oh dear. More research for me to do. I do not even know what that means.

You'll probably find that both of those are 'factory-clocked', as well... saves some tinkering.

Does that mean "already overclocked by the OEM"?

[Cody]

1. Not sure about Oolite (Oolite does detect 4 processors in the log), but quadcore is generally better, future-wise.
2. Those are two of the brandnames (partners?) that take nVidia's chips and resell as cards.
3. Yes!

Question: are you building this machine yourself, or having it built to spec?

[SandJ]

In the end I went for:
- a 64-bit, quad-core AMD FX-4100 @ 3600MHz
- 4GB RAM
- nVidia GTX 550 Ti
- Running Xubuntu 11.10 (purely out of preference)

This results in a (trimmed) Latest.log saying:

Code: Select all

23:04:37.955 [log.header]: Opening log for Oolite version 1.76 (x86-64 test release) under Linux at 2012-05-18 23:04:37 +0000.
4 processors detected.
Build options: spoken messages, mass/fuel pricing, JavaScript console support, OXP verifier, localization tools, debug GraphViz support, JavaScript profiling.

23:04:38.122 [display.mode.list.native]: X11 native resolution detected: 1280 x 1024

23:04:38.560 [rendering.opengl.version]: OpenGL renderer version: 4.2.0 ("4.2.0 NVIDIA 295.40"). Vendor: "NVIDIA Corporation". Renderer: "GeForce GTX 550 Ti/PCIe/SSE2".
23:04:38.560 [rendering.opengl.extensions]: OpenGL extensions (265):
23:04:38.567 [rendering.opengl.shader.support]: Shaders are supported.

With lots of prettiness enabled, the framerate stays between 56 and 63. Even looking at the Tionisla graveyard with a GRS Buoy Factory in the system there is no reduction in framerate. The CPUs never go over 20% load even though I have loads of other apps running in the background.